Cold Comfort: A Sojourn Through Uttarakhand's Snowy Landscape

You are walking along a deep trough of fresh snow, the sun glinting off your glasses, and somewhere, in the deep recesses of your mind, you register the silence of the frozen forest. Travelling to the hills in winter is often preferred by adventure junkies (think skiing, snowboarding), but even for slow travellers, the snowy abodes have a lot to offer. From your vantage point on top, you can see the white villages below speckled with wooden cottages and bundled-up humans. Travellers can pick between skiing along these alpine slopes or sitting inside an earthy home of a local, warming their fingers on a hearth.